Cuba – Capitalism has Won the War

Cuba: Capitalism has Won the War / Miriam Celaya
Posted on June 11, 2015

Cubanet, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 8 June 2015 — In the beginning, there
were the cassettes, first the ones we viewed on ancient Betamax
equipment, and a bit later on VHS. In those dark years in the 90’s, the
illegal dealers, better known as “messengers” would arrive with their
backpacks, pedaling their inseparable bikes, from customer to customer.
They charged of 5 or 10 Cuban pesos rent per cassette, depending how
many movies were on each tape and the quality of the recording.

Video equipment was not readily available among Cubans, so the happy
owner of one of these was not only privileged, but he would become the
host of friends and nearby neighbors who eluded the harsh reality of the
so-called “Special Period,” taking refuge in some colorful Hollywood
product or another, usually recorded by the even more restricted group
–favored among the favored- who owned a DIRECTV antenna.

Sharing a show or a movie was also a matter of affinity and solidarity
at a time when almost all Cubans suffered the brunt of an economic
crisis which, in the same way as the system that generated it, seemed to
have no end. So some fellow invitees would agree to rotate the expense
for renting the cassettes or contribute some snack to improve the get
together, such as tea or coffee or another beverage, duly accompanied by
roasted chickpeas.

The messenger, meanwhile, had to have sufficient intuitiveness and
training to sort out certain obstacles. His was an illicit occupation,
so the risk of an envious denouncement on the part of a member of the
CDR [Committee for the Defense of the Revolution] or police harassment.
Law enforcement officials would hunt down the messengers to confiscate
the tapes and later resell them on the black market to another messenger
or the owner of some video store, which was also illegal. Thus, the
circle was complete.

The authorities had arranged a police hunt to end this practice, which
favored “the imperialism’s ideological penetration” in the Cuban
population, and affected “especially the young.” In workplaces–in
particular those involved in social sciences and research–the battle
against the subtle enemy propaganda was an essential point in the
guidelines of the nuclei of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) and the
administrative and syndicate leadership, though many of the leaders
themselves and almost all of the workers were regular users of the
“venomous” product.

Thus, while during working hours the system’s bureaucrats railed against
“track two,” the official label for the “ideological war” of the US
government against Cuba, on the domestic front the consumption of the
demonized product was growing exponentially. Without a doubt, the same
“black” propaganda that the government whipped up against foreign shows
and movies only managed to interest the audience in favor of its
consumption. The olive-green battle against Yankee influence was doomed
to failure.

The “antenna” and DVD’s, imperialist agents of the “zero years”

With the arrival of the twenty-first century and of new informational
and communication technologies, video-cassettes were falling into
obsolescence, even on this backward and un-computerized island.

During the last few years of the previous decade, DVD technology made
its entrance, supplanting old video equipment and favoring the
proliferation of CD’s“burned” in some living room, and distributed the
same way by a whole army of messengers. The use of satellite dishes
proliferated, and their owners rented out their networks to the homes in
their vicinity which were able to pay for the use of those services.

Although limited to the preferences of the owner’s shows, the system
expanded rapidly in the capital and main cities with large population
concentrations, which made it difficult for the repressive forces to
detect and confiscate the equipment.

On the other hand, the more technology moved forward, the more difficult
the struggle against it. It was no longer about pursuing messengers
fleeing on bikes through the maze of streets, but it was necessary to
mobilize specialized resources, personnel and equipment, in addition to
police patrols that needed to take part in confiscating equipment and
arresting offenders.

Such deployment of repressive forces carrying out their duties on one
block allowed for entertainment dealers to dismantle equipment in the
surrounding areas, stowing it in secure sites. Soon Cubans learned to
identify the minivan with the signage “Radio Cuba” that headed the
police delegation, and soon the owners of the antennas also had their
own informants at the police station, who, through bribes, would warn
them ahead of time about the confiscating operations. At any rate, each
piece of seized equipment was like a Greek war victory dance for the
authorities, taking into account the cost of the operation and the
meagerness of the harvest.

The government would score another embarrassing defeat against resources
dictated by popular fancy and the experience of half a century of
survival in the midst of ploys and unlawfulness.

The Internet, the devil incarnate

With that stubbornness of the mentally castrated, today’s official
lackeys pull out their hair and rend their garments before the evidence
of the inevitable: the preference of the overwhelming majority of Cubans
for the cultural products of “savage capitalism.”. The illegal vessel
that now often lands on a weekly basis in Cuban homes is the so-called
“package” which has broken all records set by its predecessors’ audiences.

Today, it is almost impossible not to hear from a neighboring home the
sounds of regular foreign TV. The package has invaded national domestic
life to such an extent that Cuban TV has become an almost furtive
intruder amidst an empire of consumption of smuggled audiovisual materials.

An external hard drive is all it takes to transport terabytes of
capitalist entertainment and culture that is broadcast in “socialist”
Cuban homes at affordable prices, between 25 and 30 Cuban pesos, to
break through the grayness of State TV programming.

However, the appointed censors, with that infinite vanity that makes
them believe they are arbiters of what should be the general taste and
the managers of what each Cuban on the Island should culturally consume,
labels as “banality” peoples’ tastes favoring a soap opera from wherever
over Cuban TV’s La Mesa Redonda (The Roundtable) and knowing by heart
each new series that airs, every movie that comes out, and what Alexis
Valdés newest joke is, in addition to a host of musical talents and of
the most diverse foreign shows, including cartoons and a great variety
of kids programming that fills in the gaps, the blandness, and the poor
quality of Cuban TV programming dedicated to children.

Much to the despair of frustrated cultural bureaucrats, the antenna has
now been enriched by the undisputed power of the Internet, that “runaway
horse,” shortening the time between what is produced and what is
consumed in the cultural field, in addition to allowing coherent news
updates outside the government system.

A lost war

In this vein, it is not surprising that the official cymbals and
trumpets have summoned their cultural curators and their rusty
institutions to fight yet another battle against Yankee penetration, as
if this was not already a fait accompli. The cultured officials, like
vestal virgins, are outraged with the surrender of the former warrior
people to the seductive charms of the consumer society.

With their characteristic lack of creativity, the ever-killjoys have
launched their own strategy: “backpack” — a ridiculous parody of the
“package” — whose most eloquent proof of modernization is the inclusion,
among their offerings, of Cuban TV series that made history with the
national audience in the ’80s: ” “En Silencio ha Tenido que Ser” [It’s
had to be in Silence], “Julito el Pescador” [Little Julio the Fisherman]
or “Algo Más que Soñar” [Something Else to Dream About]. And they still
expect to be taken seriously.

The truth is that, as technology makes strides and its messengers refine
their strategies of survival to escape official controls and sell their
products, repression –just like the system it represents — continues to
be tied to the same methods of surveillance and prosecution typical of
the Cold War era. They remain anchored to a past that will not return.

By now it is obvious that Cubans like a colorful world that arrives each
week in the package more than the promise of eternal poverty that
everyday life throws at them. The socialist mirage that mobilized us
decades ago has died a natural death: it suffocated, submerged in its
own failure. The date that today excites humble Cubans is with
capitalism, even if, for the moment, it’s only through their TV screens.

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